 On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 over 58,000 casualties were sustained by the British when they all went over the top. To paint the town red means to go out and celebrate or get very drunk and it owes its origins to a legendary night of revelry in 1837. There was a man called the Marquis of Waterford known as the Mad Marquis because of his erratic behaviour and he went out one night in the English town of Melbourne Mowbray